Negative Factors
by Kamchatka
Summary: Set during series eps 19 & 20. Duo is captured by OZ and Heero makes some difficult decisions and discovers that he's far more human than he wants to be. Now COMPLETE! Language, violence, situations. Please R&R!
1. Mission acknowledged

_Okay, you know the drill: They don't belong to me, I'm just borrowing them, and I'm not making any money at this. _

_Series time line, Ep. 19 & 20. After the pilots return to space and split up, disaster strikes Duo. Heero faces difficult decisions and discovers that he's more than just the weapon of the colonies. PG-13 for our boy Duo's potty mouth and some violence. Any reviews gladly accepted!! _

_Negative Factors_

_by Kamchatka_

"Never, under any circumstances, sleep untethered in zero gravity," Professor G had told him, lectured him, harangued him. "And if you're alone in a ship, never sleep unless you're in a suit. Never."

But Duo Maxwell, at fifteen, had never learned to simply accept instructions. "Why not? I've never heard anyone say bad things happened to them when..."

G had whipped around so fast Duo would have sworn he'd seen the man's incredible nose actually cut the air. "Of course you haven't. No one has. If anything happens to a pilot in those situations he's dead. He isn't going to share anecdotes with anyone but the devil."

And so now, nearly a year later, Duo felt a little guilty as he tilted the seat in Deathscythe's cockpit to its maximum recline and tried to make his aching body as comfortable as possible. He was alone and he had no intention of exerting the effort to put on a vacuum suit. The HLV that surrounded him wasn't going to hit anything. Nothing was going to squash him to bug juice while he slept. So he compromised. No way was he going to fasten the safety harness. His shoulders and chest were still on fire from the beating his body had taken during the battle at the Singapore Space Port. He was just too bloody exhausted to get up and put on a suit. So he fastened the simple lap belt around his middle and considered himself secured.

G could probably have given a good reason why he shouldn't dry swallow a couple of heavy duty pain relievers before drifting off, too. Duo shrugged and decided he wasn't going to make the effort to try to remember any. One, two. Bitter, bitter, bitter. 

Checking the HLV's supply levels before blasting off would have been standard operating procedure, but he'd hardly launched into space under the best of circumstances. It was way too late to do anything about it when he found the water tank was all but empty and that he was the only edible thing on the little ship. Deathscythe's reservoir was full, but it was small. No one expected to be confined to a gundam for days at a time.

God, he was thirsty. He'd made himself settle for a few sips. He didn't figure he'd be aboard the HLV for very long, but it made sense to conserve his very limited water supply. He'd have another drink when he woke up. No washing, though, and damn, he smelled like he hadn't changed clothes for a week instead of a day. Nothing like a nice, prolonged battle with the Ozzies to make a guy stink. Well, fuck it. He couldn't be more than ten or eleven hours from L2. And he planned to use the time sleeping, not sniffing his armpits. 

It would have been nice to be able to wash his face, though, especially since he seemed to be getting a nice fat zit on the bridge of his nose. Front and center. Yep, there were definite drawbacks to being fifteen. In the end, he'd settled for a medicated band-aid, and hoped he didn't look like a rotting leper when he woke up...

Relena Peacecraft was following him across an outdoor basketball court, yanking his braid and lecturing him on personal hygiene when the claxon warning of hull contact ripped him from sleep. _Shit!_ He'd never let G know he'd been right. He barely had time to secure the safety harness around him and start Deathscythe's engines before the sensors told him that there were half a dozen OZ Leos surrounding the HLV and more closing in. At least they were Leos, big old, slow-moving Leos.   
God love 'em.

"Now the naked lady jumps out of the cake!" he cackled as his beam scythe cut through the HLV's skin like butter. Within seconds, he'd reduced the Leos to rubble. But before he had time to gloat, he saw more suits approaching, a single Leo preceded by a group of new models of some sort. They looked like black Tauruses, but there was something odd about the cockpit area.

"I'll be glad to fight a new model," he considered. "But get too close to me and you'll die." 

Okay, great. It had sounded good for the flight recorder, but it was immediately apparent that he was in trouble. He was so exhausted it felt like he was swimming through molasses and he _hurt_. He'd been asleep long enough that the pain medication had worn off and his muscles had stiffened up.

He hadn't had any difficulty with the Leos, but these new suits were incredible. He'd never seen anything so fast. They flashed in and out of his field of vision like shooting stars, and he couldn't seem to land a single effective shot, even while they hit him again, and again, and again, plastering him back against the seat, helpless even to attempt controlling the gundam. Deathscythe reeled and careened through the darkness, and when the mad tumble ceased, it hung crookedly against the stars like a giant insect impaled on a collector's board. 

"Power level zero," Duo panted. "If Deathscythe's dead I don't have long to live. But I won't die for nothing." His hand hovered above the closed compartment that concealed the self-destruct switch as the OZ mobile suits came closer. He didn't want to copy Heero, but he knew he was no match for those intimidating new mobile suits. Besides, it was obvious that OZ was more interested in his capture than his death. If they'd wanted him dead, the strange black Tauruses could have eliminated him immediately. He knew he couldn't allow himself to be taken, but he'd wait until the last possible moment and take as many with him as he could.

Then that sneaky bastard hanging back in the Leo fired again. Duo rode the shock wave that blasted away his gundam's beam scythe and right arm, tossed around in his seat like a rag doll despite the harness. When everything finally stopped spinning, the cockpit was dark and absolutely silent. And the suits were closing in again. Sing songing words chased each other through his mind.

_This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends..._

_Oh, shut up, shut up, shut UP! _

_...not with a bang, but a whimper._

Resignation came sneaking up out of his bones. _With a whimper. Shit. Why did I have to pay attention in that class? Thank you, Sir, Mr. Eliot, Sir."_

"No whimpers for us, buddy," he said aloud. That was going to sound weird on the flight recorder, he mused. Provided anyone ever found it. Oh well, let 'em wonder.

Duo straightened in his seat against the pull of exhaustion and pain. Whoever had designed those restraining harnesses had not been thinking of comfort. He'd worn that particular pattern of bruises a few times before, but this set wasn't ever going to have a chance to get good and colorful.

A glance at the main screen confirmed that the circle of black suits was creeping into optimum range. "Let 'em come," Duo managed to chuckle. _ Join me on my merry little trip to hell._

"It's time to end this," he breathed. 

_I don't want to die. _

_It's the only way. At least it will be clean and fast. Well... fast, anyway. Not even enough left to bury. Just little bits of Duo drifting around in... _

_Will you shut the fuck UP and just DO it?_

_Heero did it. You gonna let him upstage you?_

_Of course, Heero wasn't in space. And he lived. That ain't the way this is going down. You're not even wearing a space suit... _

_Thanks for the advice, G. Maybe I should have followed it._

The suits were close enough. Yes, if he did it now, he'd take them all out with him. And no one would ever know how fucking scared he'd been. 

_Now, dammit!_

Adrenalin jolted through his body like an electrical shock. _Ride the high, buddy, ride it right on out of here._

"Let's go to hell together!" he roared and pounded the switch.

Nothing happened.

It took him a moment to realize that he was still alive, that the mobile suits were still hovering around him like a flock of black vultures. He smacked the switch again. Nothing. 

He couldn't have hit it again if he'd wanted to. He was shaking too hard and the tidal wave of adrenalin had moved on, leaving him weaker than he'd ever felt in his life.

"No more luck for me," he muttered. "Even the self-destruct is broken."

His heart was pounding so hard he could barely breathe. It was surely going to burst. Hearts just weren't made to beat that fast. Great example he was going to make. _Died of fright. Couldn't even hold it together to self-detonate._

_At least I didn't piss my pants._

"Or maybe it was good luck..." he thought, and he'd have laughed if he'd had the energy. But the roaring in his ears took over, and he sagged into the harness, and the world tilted off into the distance.

The heat woke him. He was flat on his back with his legs in the air. Nice, dignified pose, that. Shit. He was still strapped into his seat in Deathscythe. 

_Damn_, it was hot. What was the story with that? The air was stale, and his mouth was dry as sandpaper. He tried to pull himself upright. Gravity was not his friend. _Gravity?_ Bright artificial sunlight illuminated the cockpit. His eyes wouldn't focus well enough to see clearly, but there seemed to be someone standing directly over him. Outside. Where the hell was he?

The nasty whine of a high intensity beam torch set his teeth rattling. Whoever was out there wanted in, and that wasn't good. If they didn't know how to get in, they didn't belong in. He released the harness and rolled out of the seat. If he could just make it to the emergency hatch before they sawed into the cockpit... 

But he was dizzy and disoriented, trying to walk on the back wall of the cockpit... and up wasn't where up belonged... And what the hell was an OZ soldier doing in the wrong-side-up cockpit of _his_ gundam? The guy was wearing a gas mask and holding a big ass machine pistol, which he was very discourteously pointing at Duo's face.

"Well, fuck you!" Duo huffed and charged the Ozzie. 

The young soldier was caught off guard. _Nobody_ was stupid enough to actually charge a machine gun. His split second of hesitation cost him his next promotion and a week in the hospital when Duo's head butt caught him in the belly and slammed him into the gundanium cockpit wall. Duo had almost gotten to the gun when rough hands from above grabbed his braid and pulled. He was yanked off his feet and hauled into the air, swinging from his own hair, kicking madly, and that lent a whole new dimension to feeling like a jackass.

Then he was face down on a pair of highly polished boots, outside, in the daylight, on the chest of his supine gundam, surrounded by a freaking forest of boots. He scrabbled off on hands and knees, scrambling hopelessly for a break. 

"Little son of a bitch!" someone cursed, followed immediately with a shout of, "No! Don't kill him." Then a steel-toed boot caught him in the ribs, and there was no air, no air anywhere, even though they were outside, there was just no air, no air, no air...

The toes of his boots were dragging over rough tarmac and the vibration rattled up his spine to his head, where very bad things were happening. His head was stuffed with something squishy and obnoxious, and it weighed a ton, and he couldn't even lift it to see where he was. Not that it mattered. One place was a whole lot like another when you hung suspended between two of OZ's finest and you were too beat up to lift your head, let alone get your feet under you to put one in front of the other, and your arms felt like they were being wrenched out of their sockets, because these guys weren't the least bit interested in how you were going to review their conduct.

Someone was talking. Huh? No, Not to him... Going on about how the enemy of the people had been captured... _Great. Made the news._ He opened his eyes just long enough to see the macadam swirling beneath him, but it was still too long. His stomach lurched and he spewed a quite satisfactory amount of bile onto the legs and boots of the soldier on his right. Not half bad for somebody who hadn't eaten in God only knew how long.

"Dirty little bastard!" the guy roared.

Duo stifled the urge to laugh when he heard the disgusted newscaster's voice yelling, "Cut! Don't transmit that!" But he didn't have long to celebrate his little victory, because before he even realized he was falling, the pavement came up and smacked him in the face.

_~~~_

The boy who had called himself Heero Yuy for most of the past year sat in a public library in the largest city in the L2 colony cluster and listened to a computerized history text tell him pretty lies. He knew that his namesake, the legendary colonial leader, had been assassinated in this very city 20 years earlier. But the computer before him confidently stated that there had been no significant political events in AC 175. The revisionists had interesting interpretations of what constituted "significant".

He typed notes on his laptop, looking for all the world like what he would have claimed to be, a high school student doing his lessons. The name printed neatly on the covers of the notebooks by his side was "Duo Maxwell". The ruse both satisfied and amused Heero, though he would never have admitted the extent of that amusement to himself.

He'd attended classes with Maxwell for two weeks back on Earth, and while the other boy had proven surprisingly intelligent, he was a haphazard and lacksidasical student, more prone to flirting with the girls and playing games than actually cracking a book. Since that time, Heero had registered as Duo Maxwell whenever a mission, or lack of a mission, sent him under cover as a student. If anyone ever put those transcripts together Duo Maxwell was going to have a hard time explaining his academic career.

He was still writing when the normal quiet of the library was interrupted by several people exclaiming in surprise. Heero looked up to see them gathered around the news feed vid screen in the center of the room. When he saw what they were watching, he could only stare. Two OZ officers walked across the screen, faces grim. Suspended between them was a battered and semi-conscious Duo Maxwell. 

Heero swallowed hard against the nearly physical shock of dismay and... concern? No, that was stupid. Maxwell was a soldier fighting for the same side. Nothing more. 

_I am the weapon of the colonies. A weapon does not feel. A weapon has no friends. Friends can only compromise a weapon's effectiveness. _

The broadcast was coming from C-1102, only a few hours away. How the hell had Maxwell managed to get in so much trouble so fast? It had only been two days since they'd all made it back into space. 04 had been the one to worry about: he'd destroyed his gundam and barely made it off planet in a shuttle. 05 had made contact briefly before striking out on his own again. Trowa had headed for one of the L3 colonies. But good old 02 had flown straight into disaster. 

He wanted to hit something, anything that would break into a thousand satisfying pieces, but he couldn't call attention to himself, and he willed the impulse away. This was no time for stirring up more trouble. All negative factors had to be eliminated. 

He stared at image on the screen, his expression dead neutral. Duo Maxwell had just become a negative factor.

_~TBC~_


	2. Mission accepted

_I still haven't managed to acquire ownership of Gundam Wing. Still some language, violence, and plain ole nastiness. Sorry, not beta'd. Please R & R. Me loves feedback.  
  
Ack! I *will* learn HTML. I *will* learn HTML. Fixed the file. I don't know how I managed to leave out a whole paragraph... How embarrassing. Thanks for the reviews, goblz & cardinal!   
  
  
Negative Factors  
by   
Kamchatka  
  
Chapter 2  
  
_

Heero sat back against a crate of cabbages and went over the floor plans of the OZ military base on the outer wall of Colony C-1102. For the hundredth time he wondered whether his enemies were stupid or simply arrogant. The plans had been far too easy to obtain. Until a few weeks ago, the base had been a warehouse facility for a commercial import-export firm and the contractor who'd done the refitting kept far too many of his records on his mainframe. Only one group of rooms had been converted into holding cells, and those were conveniently close to the loading docks.

He bit into a liberated apple and was amazed at how good it tasted. Amazed and slightly offended. He'd never been to C-1102, but from what he'd seen on the news, motley crowds cheering the fallen gundam, it wasn't a well-to-do colony. Damn few of those civilians had looked like they could afford to eat fresh fruit like their OZ "saviors". OZ's selfishness had made his job easier, though. All that fresh produce had to come from a civilian supplier, and the security for a gourmet wholesaler's private freighter was practically non-existent. And since its cargo was meant strictly for OZ, the ship would go straight to the military base. It was almost too easy.

He tossed the apple core into a corner of the shipping container with a sigh. Even such a small treat made him feel a little guilty. He didn't need luxuries, knew he shouldn't allow himself to enjoy them. Better to maintain a Spartan diet. Pleasures of the senses were too distracting. It was too easy to get spoiled and soft. 

_I am a weapon._

Getting soft got you dead. Look at Maxwell. His own lack of discipline had delivered him into the hands of OZ. It was the only logical explanation. He'd been in his gundam, the deadliest instrument of destruction in space. A good soldier would have self-detonated rather than allow himself, with all the vital information in his machine and his memory, to be taken by the enemy.

"Anyone can be broken," Dr. J had told him. "Even you. You might hold out against any imaginable physical torture, but eventually they would get tired of beating you and bring out mind manipulating drugs that no human brain can resist. Even an Azrael Block can be broken by a suitably skilled interrogator. It would kill you, of course, but they'd have your information, and once they have that, there's no reason to keep you alive, is there?"

A gundam pilot was too important a trophy to be left in the hands of the enemy. Even if they learned nothing from Maxwell, they'd been granted a fantastic propaganda tool. They were already making him out to be some kind of loathsome anti-colony terrorist. A big public execution would be one more triumph of morale for OZ. The colonies wouldn't have to be beaten down. Their freedom didn't have to be taken by force. They were gift wrapping it and delivering it to OZ themselves, never seeming to notice that OZ was supplying the pretty paper.

_Why couldn't you have been a better soldier, Duo?_  
_Or just stayed home._

It all came down to a simple equation. Maxwell had to kept out of the OZ propaganda machine and he had to be prevented from talking. There was only one certain way to accomplish both goals. 

_I am a weapon. _  
_He is nothing to me. _  
_He is a danger to the mission. _  
_He has to die. _  
_I have to kill him._  
_But... Duo._  
_It's my mission._  
_Mission... acknowledged._

Heero settled back against the wall, willing himself to relax, willing himself to purge the unprecedented uncertainty that had plagued him from the moment he'd learned of the other pilot's capture. There was no room for indecision, no room for compassion, no room for any emotion.

_Mission acknowledged._

"Follow your heart," his first mentor, Odin Lowe, had told him. Had Odin followed that philosophy himself? If he had, it hadn't done him much good. His emotions hadn't kept him from being killed.

_Stop it! Stop thinking about Lowe._  
_You believed him, though, didn't you?_  
_Care to take back what you said to Trowa? _  
_Was it a lie?_

Heero knew they must be getting close to the colony by now. He folded the plans and sprinkled a bit of flash powder on the paper. It evaporated into fine ash so quickly the heat was almost imperceptible. 

He checked the contents of his pack again. Explosives, detonators, and, of course the gun.

He was perfectly capable of killing a man quickly and painlessly with his bare hands.

_But not Duo._  
_To touch him would be to acknowledge his humanity. _  
_He is a target, not a person.  
He can never be a person again. Not to me._

_Mission acknowledged._

Shooting Duo would bring greater disgrace to his captors, Heero reasoned. Anyone could snap the boy's neck; it was even easy enough to imagine Maxwell annoying his jailers to the degree they'd do it themselves. But leaving a traceable bullet in his skull was an insult, the obvious theft of a valuable prize. They'd know good and well that the _enemy_ had done this, come in and killed one of its own, just to spit in the face of OZ.

It was a mission, nothing more. He would be off C-1102 and back in space before OZ even knew Duo Maxwell was dead.

_I am a weapon._

_Mission... accepted._

  


He was flat on his back again, all the way flat this time, and moving. He could feel the restraining straps tethering him to the gurney. He cracked one eye open just enough to see that he was being wheeled through a narrow corridor. Hospital? No. OZ wasn't going to bother fixing him up. It was just easier to push him around in a cart than it was to carry him. Safer, too. If he puked again he wasn't going to hit anyone but himself. Yum. 

_Turn right... twenty-five seconds. Left. Forty seconds. Turn right again. Shit, can't keep track. Stop._

The restraints fell away and a woman's crisp voice commanded him, "Get up. Now."

He let his eyelids flicker open as though he were fighting to wake up. Heero could fake it, maybe he could, too. He let out a pathetic moan, dismayed at how little effort _that_ acting exercise had cost him.

The woman's sympathy expressed itself in the cold barrel of a gun against his temple. "I said get up. You're no more unconscious than I am."

_And the award for worst actor in a drama goes to..._

As soon as he opened his eyes, he regretted it. The tall, ice blonde woman wore nurse's whites, but she handled the gun with obvious familiarity and didn't look like she would hesitate to use it. Instead of repeating herself, she gestured with the gun and a raised eyebrow. She might have been pretty under other circumstances, but right now her expression was warm as an ice pick, stern and utterly no-nonsense. She wasn't relying solely on her gun and her demeanor, either. An OZ officer stood on either side of her and there were two other men, older guys wearing nondescript coveralls. Janitors? Civilian guards? Ozzie grunts? It didn't matter much. They were big and didn't look like Welcome Wagon ladies.

Laying down he hadn't felt too bad, but sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the wheeled stretcher was a major operation. He'd have liked to have said something scathingly sarcastic, just to see if he could tease a wrinkle onto the blonde woman's smooth, implacable face, but it was enough effort just to sit upright and try to evaluate his surroundings.

He didn't like what he saw. This wasn't any kind of medical facility; it was some sort of locker room with drab walls, cement floor, rows of ancient green personal lockers. A row of sinks and dingy urinals led to two shower stalls. The one in the corner was open, with room for seven or eight guys at once. The other, directly in front of him, was smaller and had some sort of plexiglass door with "Emergency Decontamination Unit" stenciled across it in blocky red letters. Neither of them looked like something he wanted to explore.

Water started running somewhere close, and a chill slithered up his spine. Things were not looking up.

"Stand," the nurse demanded.

He took the deepest breath he could manage without setting off the demons in his ribs and pushed up off the bed. His legs had all the tensile strength of over-cooked ramen, though, and his knees buckled. One of the guards caught him before he went down and held him upright while the nurse grasped his chin in vice-like fingers and inspected both of his eyes with a pen light.

"Pupils equal and reactive," she noted, writing on her clipboard. "Take your clothes off."

_Oh yeah, you bet._

"You first," he dead-panned. 

She didn't even look up, just nodded at the man who held him.

Before Duo could brace himself, his right hand was yanked up behind him, nearly to shoulder level. Strong fingers planted themselves in the thick hair at the base of his skull and his head was thrust into a deep sink full of water and held under.

After the first instinctive, panicked struggle, he forced himself to go limp. Let them think they'd knocked him out. He was instantly pulled upright and hauled around to face the woman.

Duo wanted desperately to swallow the mouthful of water he'd managed to catch, but held it in until the nurse asked, in a carefully monotone voice, "Are you going to cooperate now?"

The water hit her squarely between the eyes.

Time stopped.

Duo managed to swallow the few drops that remained in his mouth. It tasted like liquid heaven.

The woman made no move to wipe her face, didn't even blink. 

"Since our guest does not see fit to clean himself in a civilized manner, give him three minutes in the decontamination shower. 35% solution at 49 degrees. That should remove most of the smell."

"Fuck you," Duo said pleasantly, gracing her with his most angelic smile.

"55% solution at 51 degrees. But limit it to two minutes. We wouldn't want his hair to fall out all at once." She smiled then, and Duo couldn't help shuddering. 

She scribbled a signature and handed the clipboard to one of the guards. "I've certified him fit for interrogation. Take him to 1711 when you're finished with him."

When she was gone, the man who'd restrained Duo cuffed his hands behind his back. "I don't know whether you're gutsy as hell or just plain psychotic." 

Duo watched as the man set the decontamination controls, opened, then closed the shower door, and started the timer. Steaming orange liquid splashed against the plexiglass door and an acrid chemical odor filled the room.

Duo eyed the man warily, but the fellow was busy counting along with the timer. The other three guards were pointedly looking the other way.

_What the hell...?_

"I have kids of my own," the man said, still watching the timer as it ticked away the moments. "You're my enemy and you're a prisoner of war. But we're not animals. Can you hold your breath for 30 seconds?"

Duo blinked and nodded. He had expected anything but compassion.

"Keep your eyes tight shut and whatever you do, don't inhale any of that shit." He opened the door and Duo stepped into the longest 30 seconds of his short life. The chemicals bled through his hair, through his clothing, even through his boots. His skin burned as though he'd been dipped in acid and the stench crept into his nose even though his whole existence was concentrated on not inhaling any of the foul brew. He hadn't been able to take a deep breath and his ribs were screaming by the time the stream turned to plain warm water and then stopped. He leaned against the wall of the shower stall and concentrated on not falling. He was dizzy again, and so tired he couldn't have lifted his arms to wipe the wet hair out of his face even if his hands hadn't been cuffed..

The shower door opened and the air that rushed in was so cold in comparison to the disinfectant spray that he immediately started shivering so hard his teeth chattered. He wanted to get out of the stall, he really did, but he couldn't seem to remember how to put one foot in front of another.

Then two of the men were sitting him down on the gurney. Someone put a blanket around his shoulders. A cup pressed lightly against his lips and he smelled fresh water. He snapped to full awareness and drank gratefully. He fought the urge to gulp as much as he could at once: It would only make him sick again. He contented himself with slow, small swallows.

_Why are they doing this?_  
_They're my enemies._  
_The guy said he was my enemy._  
_Why?_

"Thanks," he mumbled, but he kept his head down.

He didn't want to look up into the eyes of the men whose sudden, bewildering acts of kindness had saved him from further torture. He wasn't ready to see the face of a human being above the uniform he'd been conditioned to hate. He couldn't start thinking of OZ soldiers as people with kids and families, people just like anyone else, people like him. He _couldn't. _ Not yet. 

  


Heero adjusted the helmet on his vacuum suit. The freighter was docking and he had to be ready to move quickly. He tucked the cabbage he'd stolen under his arm and hid beside the hatch. When the container door slid open, he was delighted to see just one man. The guy wasn't wearing a helmet. Good. That meant he could ditch the cumbersome suit. 

As the warehouse worker entered the container, Heero let go the cabbage and watched in delight as it caught his attention. One quick blow to the man's neck and he was out in the cargo bay. He discarded his helmet and strolled with studied nonchalance towards the exit.

  


Duo woke to find himself lying prone on a cold metal floor. He hadn't been out long; his clothes were still a bit damp. 

_God, I'm going to catch pneumonia at this rate._

Not that it mattered. Not after the shortest interrogation session in history.   
_"Who would have thought that a gundam pilot would be just a little kid?"_  
And he just hadn't been able to keep quiet. What the hell had he been thinking? Just because one handful of Ozzies had acted like human beings...  
_"You'll be executed. The people's feelings about the execution will unite the colonies."_  
He'd been about to tell them just what he thought about their damned execution and, sure enough, someone had hit him from behind again.

_Executed._  


Why hadn't the damned self-destruct switch worked?

_Shit. I did the best I could. Why wasn't it enough?_

His hands were no longer cuffed and he pushed himself to his knees, shivering and coughing. It was a short crawl to the wall. He could probably stay sitting up with a good, strong wall supporting him. His skin felt coated and sticky from the disinfectant shower and his hair... ah, geez, he didn't even want to _think _about his hair. His one vanity had been reduced to a stinking, bedraggled rag rope. His scalp itched, but he didn't want to touch it. He hadn't been so filthy since he'd been living out of dumpsters on the streets of L2. Back when he'd had...

_You don't have lice.   
It's just the chemicals._

_For crying out loud, get some perspective here._

He felt like he could just roll over on his side and die, but he also knew that he wasn't really hurt that badly. Two or three broken ribs. His lung might be bruised a little, but it wasn't filling up with blood. None of that nasty gurgling feel you got when you were really in trouble. Probably a bit of a concussion, because they just couldn't seem to deny themselves the pleasure of knocking him in the head, and he was still dizzy and having a hell of a time concentrating on anything. He was no doubt sporting a remarkable array of bumps and bruises, too, but he'd have been congratulating the bejesus out of himself if he'd been in a crash and managed to walk away in such good shape.

_Gack!_ Something was crawling on his nose. No, just that stupid bandaid coming loose. He peeled it off and tossed it away. A zit was the absolute least of his worries now.

A sudden commotion outside caught his attention an instant before the door slid open and something tumbled into the cell. A body.

_What the...?_

Against the darkness of the cell, the light from the corridor was blinding. He couldn't quite make out the figure silhouetted there. Strange. It almost looked like...

"Heero?"

  


_~~TBC~~_


	3. Mission on hold

The drill: Gundam Wing belongs to someone else. Only the mistakes are mine. Oi, I need a beta reader! Rated PG-13 for language. Duo-kun is still a potty mouth. Please R & R. I crave feedback like an addict craves drugs. Feeeeeeed me, please. Since it's been a while since the last chapter, here's the last little bit of that, too.

  


A sudden commotion outside caught his attention an instant before the door slid open and something tumbled into the cell. A body.

_What the...?_

Against the darkness of the cell, the light from the corridor was blinding. He couldn't quite make out the figure silhouetted there. It almost looked like...

"Heero?"

~~~~~

_Negative Factors  
by  
Kamchatka_

_Chapter Three: Mission On Hold_

Duo was torn between being absurdly glad to be able to see a familiar face before he died and regretting that this strange, stoic boy had been the one sent to kill him. Heero Yuy didn't need another reason to feel guilty.

_I wanted to be your friend, and now I'm helping destroy you._

"You always show up unexpectedly."  
_  
I'm sorry, Heero._

Inevitably, the gun came up, cocked and leveled at his heart.

"I guess it's okay," Duo told him, unsure which of them he was trying to convince. Better to die at the hands of a friend than be executed for the entertainment of the very people he'd fought to save. "They were about to use Deathscythe and me in their evil plans." He'd meant for it to sound a little bit like a joke, but it sounded like the truth.. Hell, it was the truth. 

_What if it really doesn't bother him?_  
_What if killing me is just another mission?  
No. I don't believe that._

"So I'm destined to be killed by you." He pushed himself up into a precarious standing position against the wall.  
_  
Make it as easy on him as possible.   
Don't look helpless.   
Hell, be a little obnoxious; it's your last chance._

"It's okay. You can shoot me now." He squeezed his eyes shut and a strange calm settled around his aching body. It wasn't okay, but it was miles ahead of self destruction.

_Hail Mary, full of grace...  
I don't think I believe in you, God, but just in case...  
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death..._

Heero raised the gun for a single, clean head shot.  
_Stop being so goddam strong, Duo.  
Be weak.  
I can kill a coward.  
I accepted this mission.  
You are nothing to me, nothing. _

Duo felt his resolve begin to crumble. Dying was one thing, waiting to die was something else entirely.  
_Oh, shit, will you just do it and get it over with..._

_Mission accepted._  
His finger tightened on the trigger. Just one simple squeeze, a few more ounces of pressure._  
_He couldn't move.

Duo's eyes opened, wide and bewildered. "You _are_ going to do it, aren't you?"

_I can't.  
No one can ever know about this, but I can't._  
"Only if you want me to."

_Oh, God, no, I don't want you to, and if I could still talk, I'd tell you that._  
Duo shook his head slightly.

"You can still use your right hand, can't you?" Heero asked. He lowered the gun and tossed it to Duo, then bent to collect the unconscious guard's machine gun. 

Duo leaned against the wall, staring at the gun in his hand as though it had suddenly started to sing a Puccini aria. 

"Come on," Heero growled. We have to get out of here."

_Okay, this is where he kills me._  
"I don't think I can walk."

Heero's expression didn't change. "You might have told me that."

Duo grimaced. "It didn't seem too important when you were just going to shoot me."

Heero favored him with a sour glance, but he settled himself under Duo's arm, remembering a time when their roles had been reversed. 

Duo grinned in relief. "This is where you're supposed to say..." he put on a deep, dramatic voice, "All you can do now is trust me." He didn't expect an answer, and he didn't get one. "That's okay," he went on. "I trust you."

_You shouldn't._  
_I'm not your friend.  
I'm not.  
_

Now that it seemed there was actually a chance for escape, Duo became more interested in the logistics. "Where's your gundam?"

"I left it on Earth. It's clumsy in space, and I didn't want to get caught like you." It wasn't an accusation, just a statement of fact.

"Hey! I didn't exactly get caught on purpose, you know. So how are we getting out of here?"

"My misssion was to kill you. I was just going to blend in on the colony for a few days and get on a transport. I didn't plan on an actual escape."

"What if we can't get out?"

"Then I kill both of us." Heero punctuated the statement with the detonator in his free hand. Small explosions in the distance, followed by the satisfying sounds of confusion and chaos, told him that his distraction was working. Planting explosives was never a waste of time. He'd set charges around every hangar and cargo bay in the base. The one closest to the escape route he'd chosen held only a few one man fighters and a patrol cruiser. He'd rather have taken a mobile suit of some kind, any kind, but those would be too heavily guarded now. 

They ran through narrow corridors, ducking out of sight when OZ soldiers ran by. Heero was grateful for the low gravity of the colony's outer walls. He hadn't planned on having to run at all, let alone half carrying someone else. But he'd made the decision to rescue Duo instead of executing him, and he'd have to deal with the consequences. 

They wheeled around a tight corner and ran headlong into a group of men in worker's coveralls. Heero snapped the machine gun into position before the Ozzies had a chance to react. He didn't like to kill unarmed men, but they'd seen him and...

_"No!" _Duo shouted and slammed him into the wall. The gun blurted harmlessly into the ceiling. Heero was up in time to see Duo curled up on the floor, hugging his ribs with one arm and waving the Oz workers away with the other. He grabbed the gun and scrambled off after the escaping men.

Even injured, the Deathscythe pilot was fast. He launched himself at Heero's ankles, bringing him down in a tangle of limbs.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Heero shouted. "They're getting away."

"'S okay," Duo panted. "One of those guys saved my life. Don't kill 'em, Heero. Please." All the physical fight had gone out of him. Under an impressive coating of dirt and bruises, his face was pale and damp with sweat, but his eyes were bright with purpose. He reached up to Heero, silently asking for a hand up.

_"Baka!" _Heero exploded. He grabbed Duo's shirt front, yanked him to his feet, and slammed him into the wall. "Are you trying to sabotage this mission?" He pinned the other boy against the wall, forearm across his throat, ready to cut off his air or break his neck. 

Duo didn't struggle. He met Heero's gaze without flinching. "Wasn't your mission to kill me?" he asked evenly.

_Bastard.  
Why aren't you scared of me?  
You should be.  
I almost killed you.  
I should have killed you.  
But I didn't._

Heero backed off. There was nothing to say. Nothing. He tucked himself under Duo's arm again and steered him into the elevator at the end of the corridor. A trio of soldiers was waiting for them when the door slid open two levels down, but another hit on the detonator blew them out of the way and propelled the escaping gundam pilots into the hangar. 

The little ship Heero chose for their getaway was a four man patrol cruiser, stocked and ready for flight. After they donned the slightly oversized astrosuits they found inside, Heero made sure that Duo was secure in the co-pilot's seat and disappeared for a moment.

When he returned and piloted the craft toward the opening hangar doors, he was grinning - an expression Duo found a bit unnerving. 

"Where were you?" he asked.

"Just making sure those mobile dolls have a good target," he said, as though he thought it was a perfectly good explanation. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

The colony was ringed with squads of mobile dolls. Duo shivered in spite of himself. They were _still_ the creepiest things he'd seen in space. "They're really fast," he found himself reminding Heero. 

"That's okay," Heero answered smugly. "It's not us they're looking for. I let them target the astrosuit. They'll be after OZ."

"Heero... we're wearing them, too."

"Then we'd better disappear before they can lock onto us." Blinding, silent explosions erupted from the colony wall, far from the hangar they'd just left. The mobile dolls were efficiently destroying their selected targets.

When they were safely away from the colony, Heero pulled off his uncomfortable helmet. Duo seemed deep in thought, and it didn't look as though the thoughts were pleasant ones.

"Heero, my gundam's still back there," he finally said. "I have to go back and get it."

"There's no need. The gundams are almost useless now. There's no place to take them back to. All of the scientists have been captured by OZ. Even Dr. J."

"But what...?" The look of bewilderment on Duo's face might have been comical under other circumstances.

"I have to kill them, too," Heero said simply.

"Oh, Heero." Duo heard the regret in his own voice. Fine, Heero already thought he was too soft. But the killing had gone on for so long, and now it seemed like there would never be an end to it. The colonies were suddenly their enemy and they had no friends anywhere. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted the damned war to be over.  
_  
I just want to go home.  
But there is no home.  
God, I could just...  
Boys don't cry.  
Even when they have to._

"I have to eliminate all obstacles." Heero waited for the inevitable response, but none came. Duo Maxwell with nothing to say? He glanced over to see that the other boy was staring out at the stars, no longer listening, eyes suspiciously bright.

He looked away. Whatever was tormenting Maxwell now was private, none of his business. He had demons of his own to face.

_Why couldn't I kill you?_

He'd gone to C1102 with the mission of killing the captured gundam pilot. No hard feelings, nothing personal at all, just SOP. Duo had understood. That had been plain to see. He knew he'd become a liability. It was no good to let a gundam and its pilot be used for OZ propaganda. 

Only... he'd tried so hard not to look pathetic, as though he hadn't wanted Heero to feel the guilt of killing a helpless victim instead of someone who knew it was the only right thing to do. Heero sighed. That moment of simple, quiet courage had been his undoing. 

Goddam Maxwell got under your skin. He was like some oversized puppy, eager to be your friend, wild to play, keeping after you long after you were ready to quit. Only two speeds: full on and full off. And he just didn't know when to shut up. But he was an incredible pilot and his bravery was undeniable. And he believed in the future, even believed he had a future. And, dammit, he was worth saving. 

_So here we are.  
Wherever here is.  
Uncharted territory._

They were at least three or four hours from their destination. Heero set the coordinates and engaged the autopilot. He'd noticed a couple of bunks in the compartment behind the cockpit. Duo could get some real rest back there. The boy had slumped sideways against his harness, eyes shut, face slack. Heero reached over and gave his arm a shake, but got no response. Shit, he was really out. 

"Hey, Maxwell, snap out of it." 

Nothing. 

"Duo?"

The object of his attention barely managed to lift his head and look over at Heero with bleary, half-focused eyes. "Go 'way," he mumbled.

Heero unbuckled the other boy's harness. "Come on," he coaxed, pulling him to his feet. "There's a bed back here." 

Duo didn't look like he weighed anything at all, but in full gravity he was heavy, and he wasn't doing much of the walking this trip. Heero sat him down on the nearest bunk and helped him peel off the space suit. 

The acrid odor of chemical bath and several days worth of hard living was strong in the clean air. Duo had obviously been in the same sweat and blood encrusted clothes since the cataclysmic battle at Singapore. Heero scowled. Maxwell had to hate being this filthy. The guy took more showers than anyone he'd ever known. He'd mentioned once, in one of their one-sided conversations at school, that the colony he'd been raised in was perpetually short of water. The well-to-do got it and the poor didn't. Duo had been lucky to get his clothes washed once every couple of weeks and have a sponge bath about as often. 

_He's been making up for it ever since._

The little revelation surprised Heero with its intimacy.  
_Funny, the things that make people tick..._

He looked around the little cabin. "There's a shower."

An expression of pure bliss captured Duo's face. "Oh, Christ, yes." Then his eyes popped open. "Water, though, right? No chemicals."

"Hn. I thought I recognized part of that smell. No chemicals."

"Good." His eyes narrowed. "_Part_ of that smell..."

"I was being diplomatic. You really reek."

"Hey, fuck you," Duo muttered, fumbling with his shirt buttons. Then, inexplicably, he began to giggle. "You're right. God! Yuck! I _ stink! _" The giggle deepened to a laugh. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Oh, shit that hurts!" But he cradled his ribs and kept laughing. "Oh, man, you will pay for that one! Oh... oh.... ow..."

Heero stared at the other boy in wonder. He was absolutely insane. And... _funny?_ He felt a strange flutter in his chest and realized that he, too, was starting to laugh. He wanted to let it loose, that wild, trapped little animal of a laugh, but not now. Not yet.

_Control.  
Control is what makes you different from the rest of them.  
It makes you superior.  
It makes you a weapon.  
If you lose control you die, and the mission ends.  
And then it's all been for nothing.  
_  
By the time Duo had stripped off his ruined clothes and boots, Heero had found him a pair of clean coveralls in one of the lockers. He checked the shower compartment and found it stocked with soap, shampoo, and a couple of towels. Good enough.

Duo was unbraiding his hair with unsteady hands. 

"Are you sure you're up for this?" 

Duo snorted. "Yeah. I've been giving myself baths for a long time now." 

He stood up and his hair fell down around him, hiding the terrible bruises that marred his chest and abdomen. Some of them were obviously the result of being thrown against his gundam's restraining harness; there was nothing gentle about the art of mobile suit combat. The rest bore grim witness to the rough treatment he had received at the hands of OZ. Hands _and_ feet. Beneath what was all too obviously a boot print, the left side of his rib cage was wickedly black. Then the brown curtain of hair covered him like a cloak. 

"How can you keep it like that?" Heero asked. "Your hair."

Duo considered for a moment. "It's part of me. How can I not?"

"But it gets in the way. And it's so much trouble." _It doesn't make sense._

"Nah. I'm used to it." He accepted Heero's steadying arm. The three meter trip to the shower stall was a long one. "And it reminds me of people I love."

_Are they the ones you fight for?  
Your family?  
What's it like to have someone you love?  
What's it like to love?_

"Are you sure you can do this by yourself?" he asked aloud.

Duo stepped into the shower stall. "Yuy, I am_ not_ gonna take a shower with you," he said with the devil's own grin.

"Hey!" Heero snapped in spite of himself. "That was not what I..." Then he recognized the joke. "Only in your dreams, Maxwell. Only in your fucking dreams." 

_Little asshole. _But when he sat back down in the cockpit, and saw his reflection in the side port, Heero realized that his face had relaxed into a little half smile. It wasn't what he had wanted to see.

_You let your guard down._

He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to laugh because something was funny, and not because he was giddy with battle rush. The feeling had been so unfamiliar that it had almost frightened him.

_You can't afford laughter.  
You can't afford fun.  
You are the weapon of the colonies._

_And the colonies don't want you._

_  
~~TBC~~_

_  
  
_  
  
  



	4. Mission abandoned

_Well, here's the last chapter. Sorry for the delay. Thank you so much for the kind reviews!! Still rated for language. Our little Duo hasn't had his mouth washed out with soap yet. Oh, please, please feed my addiction and r & r. Thanks for reading!_  
  


Negative Factors  
by Kamchatka

Chapter Four: Mission abandoned

_You are the weapon of the colonies.  
And the colonies don't want you_  


A shower was always a good thing, but Duo couldn't remember ever enjoying the feel of soap and water quite as much as he did now. After three rinses, his hair finally felt clean and his skin was losing the clinging stickiness of his forced chemical bath. He sat on the floor of the stall and let the warm water massage his aching muscles and rinse the tangles from his hair. He had all but fallen asleep when he heard Heero call, "Are you all right in there?"

"Oi, Heero," he answered lazily, leaning his head back against the wall. "Am I done already?"

"Already? You've been in there for half an hour. You'll turn into a prune."

Duo studied his well-wrinkled fingertips. Yep. Definitely prunish. "Okay." He rolled forward onto his knees and watched with curious detachment as his hair tried to follow the spiraling water down the drain. Standing up seemed a useless waste of energy he didn't have. He reached up and reluctantly shut off the flow of water and pulled a towel off the rack.

Heero was there to offer him a hand up, and he was disappointed to find that he needed it more than ever. This was getting downright scary. By the time Heero got him back to the bed he was so weak legged he was trembling. 

"Sorry I'm such a bother," he offered as Heero lowered him into a sitting position. _Father Maxwell used to say humility's good for the soul. I must really be racking up the points today._

He wasn't expecting an answer, but Heero surprised him. "It's not a bother. Sometimes you need help."

Duo grinned ruefully. "At least us mere mortals do." He gingerly pulled his legs up and lay down on his slightly less damaged right side.

Heero nodded silently, not in agreement, simply in acknowledgment. Was that how the others saw him? As something not quite human? Dr. J and his cohorts had taught him the art and science of killing, had taught him to master his weaknesses, to act as a human weapon. They'd taught him physics and engineering, math and languages. They'd even used gene manipulation to teach his bones to be stronger and his muscles more efficient...  
_Couldn't you have spent just a few minutes teaching me how to talk to someone?_

He folded his legs under him and sat beside the bed, looking at the floor.  
_I have no idea how to do this. _  


"No. That's not what I meant at all. Trowa took care of me for a month after I self-detonated. I was unconscious most of the time. He nursed me, changed my bandages, washed me, spoon fed me. If he hadn't, I'd have been dead a hundred times."

_Why are you telling him this? It isn't his business. It's..._

"Okay," Duo finally said. "So maybe I'm not _that _much trouble." He favored Heero with a wry little smile. "But it's still kind of embarrassing. I feel like a wuss."

"Hn. You look like a drowned rat." He held out a comb he'd found in one of the lockers. "With a lot of hair." 

"Cool," Duo commented, but made no move to take it. Heero looked up and saw that his eyes were drifting out of focus.

"Are you going to sleep or passing out?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" the other boy slurred. "Sleeping, I guess. Seems like a long... time..." And then he was gone.

Heero sat for a long time watching Duo's gentle, even breathing. Utterly relaxed, with his customary grin faded and those startling eyes closed, he looked much younger, almost childlike, almost innocent.

_Who are you? What are you doing here? You're no soldier, but I don't know what you are._

He stood and covered the sleeping boy with a blanket. How long had it been since he'd trusted another person enough to allow himself to sleep in their presence? He couldn't remember any time since his days with the assassin, Odin Lowe.

_You trust too much and too easily, Duo. What if I still planned to kill you? How would you stop me? You just stood there... "It's okay. You can shoot me now."_

Heero shook his head and fingered the metal comb. All that hair. If it didn't get combed before it dried, it would be an awful mess. He sat at the head of the bed and gathered Duo's hair across his lap. There was so _much_ of it. He started at the ends. Comb a bit, ease out a tangle. Comb a bit. Move up. Comb some more. Undo a knot. Comb. Duo never stirred.

  


Hours later, Heero sat on the wide sill of the only window in his tiny, darkened student apartment. It felt like far more than a day since he'd last been there. It wasn't much, and it wasn't home, but he felt more secure in this spot that, for the moment, was his own, personal space, than he did anywhere else except the cockpit of his gundam. He looked out over streets that were as quiet at 3 am as they ever were. From here, it all seemed so normal; he could see no evidence of the war, even though he'd been fighting just that afternoon.

Here, in this largest L2 city, he was anonymous, unnoticed; here he could be anyone or anything. It suited him. Heero remembered almost nothing of his life before the war, the endless, monotonous war. He had been an instrument of that war from earliest childhood - he clearly remembered shooting an enemy soldier before he was six. At least Odin Lowe had _ told_ him the woman was an enemy. Certainly, she'd been a soldier. Not that it would have mattered to him then. Odin had given the order, he had followed it.

Hear an order. Obey. It was the natural scheme of things, wasn't it? _Wasn't it?_

He looked down at the bed below the window, where Duo slept soundly, stretched out on his back, his braid trailing out over the pillows. Try as he might, Heero couldn't picture Duo jumping to obey an order without question. With him, there would always be a "Why?" or a call for clarification, followed by Duo _deciding _whether or not to obey. Which was precisely why he shouldn't be relied upon. A soldier had to act without question, without debate.

And yet, Heero found himself believing that he _could _rely on Duo. Anyone who trusted so much had to be trustworthy, didn't he?

Duo stirred in his sleep and tried to roll onto his side, but the IV feeding into his left hand held him back. Heero slid off the window sill and gently, but firmly restrained him. He didn't want the needle to dislodge. The injured boy needed the fluids and nourishment; he didn't need another painful knot anywhere on his body, no matter how blamelessly received.

The medic from Dr. J's contact list had wanted him hospitalized, but Heero hadn't been able to justify the risk. Duo was too easily identified and OZ was going to be looking for him all over the L2 cluster soon, if they weren't already doing so.

_I should have gotten him farther away. _

But with OZ winning over the colonies without firing a shot, there _ was_ no place absolutely safe. This city was far easier to hide in than most. London or Tokyo would have been better, but there was no more casual traffic on or off Earth. 

_Unless something happens soon... unless we do something soon, there will be no haven for us anywhere._

"We could cut his hair, get him into a hospital as a motorcycle accident or something," the doctor had suggested.

But Heero had flatly rejected the idea. _"It's part of me... it reminds me of people I love." _

"You kids just don't get it," the older man had lamented. "If he'd gotten a few more good kicks you'd be looking for a place to bury him. You're not indestructible." 

"I can take care of him here." Adamant. Flat. Final.

"Fine. Wake him up every two hours for the next twelve. If you can't wake him up, or he's more disoriented, call me. Or if his temperature goes above 38.3. Or if he starts to have trouble breathing. Or he coughs up blood. Or if he has a seizure." Angry eyes had searched for some response. "Am I getting through to you? There's a hell of a limit on what I can do for him here."

There hadn't been much else to say. Heero had thrust a handful of bills at the man and thanked him for his trouble.

The guy had waved away the money, gathered up his stuff, and headed out the door when he turned back and said, "Look, the kid will probably be fine. But don't take so much on yourself. There are people who can help you."

_Sometimes you need help... _ Heero felt his face burn in an uncomfortable blush. "I'm sorry. I was out of line. I appreciate your help. But it's too dangerous for him to be in a hospital. OZ is going to be after us with everything they've got."

The doctor had nodded, his face softer. "I'll check back in tomorrow. You might get some rest yourself"

  


Duo woke at the sensation of being held down and saw Heero above him in the dark. "Heero? Something wrong?" There was a scary moment of not knowing where he was. _Oh yeah... apartment. L2._

Heero backed away a bit. "Sorry," he murmured. "You were trying to turn over. I was afraid you'd snag the IV. It was about time to wake you up, anyway."

"Huh? Where we going? IV...?" He had vague, patchy memories of landing at a private air strip, riding through the city in the back of a car. A cab? Who the hell took a cab? No, not a cab. He'd had to ride on the floor. Something wrong with that picture. _Long_ ride up in the elevator. Crummy little one room apartment, not even a couch or a TV...

"Shhh... Lay back down. We're not going anywhere. The doctor wants me to wake you up every two hours."

Doctor. Oh yeah. Poking, prodding, bright lights in his eyes. Stupid questions. Who the hell cared what day it was or how many fingers? Taping his broken ribs. He remembered that part, all right. Does that hurt? Does _that_? Easy answers. It all hurt. He was pretty sure his freaking _hair_ hurt by the time he was done. Huh... His hair... it was all combed out, braided, dry. Huh. "Wake me up to make sure my brains aren't leaking out my ears?"

"Hn. Something like that."

"So, are they?"

Heero looked at him critically. "Not yet."

_Okay... he's not... Nah. Heero never jokes. But while he's in a good mood..._

"Oi, Heero. Got any food? I'm _starving."_

Heero pointed solemnly at the IV bag. "Specialty of the house."

_____I have got to be dreaming. Heero did make a funny. Watch out for incoming lightning strikes. _

"You are enjoying this _way_ too much," Duo grumbled, pulling the covers up to his chin and closing his eyes. "G'night." He'd closed his eyes as an editorial comment, but drowsiness was waiting for him. He felt himself drifting away again into that warm, soft place where nothing hurt until he realized that Heero was still standing by the bedside, still studying him.

"What?"

"Why did you let yourself be captured?" 

So there it was. Heero might be loosening up a little bit, but under it all, he was still the soldier, still the weapon. _Fuck, Heero, do you think I wanted that? _

"Why didn't you self destruct?"

Duo took as deep a breath as he dared. "I did, Heero," he said softly. "I hit the switch twice. Deathscythe was dead in space. It didn't work. By the time I knew, it was too late to try anything else, 'cause I moved in right next to them. I wasn't about to die without taking the whole lot of them with me."

Heero nodded silently. He knew instinctively the other boy told the truth. Shinigami never lied. And he hadn't run. And he hadn't hidden.

"I'm sorry I had to ask you," he whispered.

_____I'm sorry it was important to me.  
You are someone who can be my friend, Duo.  
I've never had a friend.   
I don't know if I'm ready yet._

"I should have known."

Duo snorted out a rude little laugh. "Damn straight you should have known." He started to raise up on his elbow, but stopped, wincing at the pressure on his ribs. "It's okay, Heero. I know it had to look sort of strange. I know you had to ask."

Heero nodded, but said nothing. 

Duo lay back into a more comfortable position. "Heero, go to sleep! I can't relax with you hanging over me like a vulture. Besides, you look like you're about to fall over."

Heero blinked. He _was_ sleepy. He could doze for a while. He'd wake up in time to check on Duo; sometimes his internal alarm clock was _ too_ good.

"Okay. See you in two hours, then." He took an extra pillow from the foot of the bed and tossed it on the floor.

"Yuy..." Duo's voice was testy. "I am _way_ too tired to argue with you, but there's room for half of OZ in this bed. You don't have to sleep on the floor."

He was right, of course. There was room enough for two Heeros between himself and the wall. "I didn't think..."

Duo shook his head. "That'll be the day." He patted the broad expanse of bed beside him. "It's okay."

"I didn't want to shake the bed and hurt you."

"You won't."

Heero didn't move.

"It's _okay_." Then he grinned wickedly. "Get over yourself, Yuy. You're not my type."

_____Oh no, you're not going to get me with that one again._  
"Hn... So at least we agree on one thing." He crawled gingerly into the space between Duo and the wall and lay down. "There. Are you happy now?"

Duo's eyes were closed, but he was still grinning. No, it was a gentler expression. He was smiling. "G'night, Heero."

Heero listened as Duo's breathing slowed and deepened. When he was certain the other boy slept, he whispered, "Good night, Duo," and relaxed into the pillows. It had been a long, strange day.

He had let the mission go seriously awry, then abandoned it outright, and somehow, that was all right. Maybe sometimes it was better when the mission failed. Maybe some missions were meant to be rejected.  
_Maybe there are things more important than missions.  
Like people._

Duo's soft, even breathing was soothing him into sleep.  
Duo, who was still no soldier, who was still brash and irritating.  
Duo, who could make him want to laugh.  
Duo, who was...

_____My friend.  
I think I have a friend._

Heero slept.

_____  
_

_____~Fin~_


End file.
